Clock Ticking on Hinton Reparations Bill

There will be no public vote on an Alabama lottery. APR’s Pat Duggins reports time is also running out for lawmakers to make up for a miscarriage of justice when they resume a special session next week.

State Senator Paul Bussman submitted a bill on the case of Anthony Ray Hinton. He spent thirty years in prison after being falsely convicted in a double murder in 1985.

Bussman wants to compensate Hinton through Alabama’s Wrongful Incarceration Act. The measure states that prison exonerees can get fifty thousand dollars for each year of wrongful imprisonment.

There’s no House companion bill, so the matter remains unresolved. Hinton was also only offered a half million dollars, instead of the $1.5 million the Wrongful Incarceration Act says he’s eligible to receive.

The state says that since the act went into effect, only one person has received payment for wrongful prison time.

APR is producing an ongoing series on justice and prison reform. Part two on Alabama’s overcrowded prisons airs this Thursday.